Barrel Strength Design's "Sing Another Song" To Do list template: because you can't think very far in advance

by David YoonNovember 28, 2012

Traditional To Do lists take on familiar forms: a list of checkboxes to fill out and cross off when complete. It's an age old design that Ben Parizek, founder of the web design consultancy Barrel Strength Design, has always found problems with.

"Items on To Do lists tend to get stale almost the instant they're written," Ben explains. "I used to have 'Record Album of Children's Songs' on my to do list, and it stayed there for months and months."

That's why he created the Sing Another Song to do list template, named after Leonard Cohen lyrics. "You can realistically only think as far ahead as today and tomorrow if you're honest with yourself. Everything past that is simply marked as Beyond."

So how do you use Sing Another Song? "Write what you can realistically get done today in Today," says Ben. "What you can't, file under Tomorrow. And whatever you've got on your mind but don't have time to get to, file under Beyond. The next day, rewrite Today with everything you planned yesterday. I guarantee that list will change slightly, depending on what you accomplished the previous day. That's how life is—a constant evolution. What you thought was important today might not wind up being so important tomorrow."